


ERI (Emotionally Repressed Irken)

by HmmYesIDoIndeedWriteOnOccasion



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: (Gaz wins), A bully tells Dib to die just a heads up, Bullying, Denial of Feelings, Fluff, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Is Zim touch starved? You decide!, M/M, Monopoly battle, Mutual Pining, and subsequent ignoring of feelings, feelings confuse zim, followed closely by feelings realisation, it’s a journey of self discovery folks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:54:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29104374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HmmYesIDoIndeedWriteOnOccasion/pseuds/HmmYesIDoIndeedWriteOnOccasion
Summary: “The brush of hands lasted barely even a second.It’s maddening all the same.Zim can’t stop thinking about it, can’t stop the warmth pooling in his cheeks. It’s a battle, and he’s losing quite miserably.”In which Zim catches feelings, and pines incessantly while denying everything the entire time.
Relationships: Dib/Zim (Invader Zim)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 97





	ERI (Emotionally Repressed Irken)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Please note that Dib gets bullied here, and is told to die. (Not directly, but Dib recounts this). Just a heads up in case this is potentially triggering. Stay safe!
> 
> And without further ado, here is the fic I wrote entirely as an excuse to make Zim a confused pining mess!

It all starts with a brief, barely there brush of hands.  
  
  


Zim looks up at the sky with growing trepidation. It’s bleak, and dark, and _deadly_. 

The rain is, at least. But that’s not the point.

He trails after Dib, trying to look more confident about the whole ‘ _deadly acid about to fall from the sky at any minute’_ thing. Of course, out of all the days his usually genius ( _defective,_ his mind hisses, and Zim has to bat that thought away) brain chooses to forget something, it happens to be his paste on this particular dark afternoon.

Dib tried to call his Father after Skool to arrange a pick up, but after the 15th failed attempt to reach him Dib gave up.

Something about that made Zim’s squeedlyspooch twist uncomfortably.

(And somewhere in space, on the remnants of what was once a great ship, a screen flashes the message “999+ missed calls”).

So they resigned to walk together, with Zim only agreeing because the Dib-Monkey’s coat is supposed to be waterproof (to a point).

Dib doesn’t know that Zim plans on stealing his coat if there’s any rain, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. It’s not like his skin will melt off if the rain gets him. 

So here they are, walking, with Dib striding in front and Zim struggling to keep up.

That is, until Zim shouts “Are you _trying_ to leave Zim behind?!” 

Dib, who’s been walking in complete silence for the majority of the trip, is surprised to discover that Zim is still there.

Usually Zim talks the entire trip. 

_This is weird,_ Dib thinks, regarding the Irken with mild shock.

“Uhh, sorry, i’ll just… Do you want me to walk slower??”

“Obviously, idiot-pig.”

Dib doesn’t take the chance to insult Zim’s height as he usually does when the opportunity comes up (and Zim, as much of an expert at insulting people as Dib is, knows very well when it does), which is suspicious.

But Zim can keep up now, which is a win, so he doesn’t think much of it. 

Walking side by side, Zim can talk to him properly. 

And thus, he launches into a riveting tale of customer service at Foodcourtia. Dib isn’t listening, and Zim is vaguely aware of this, but (not that Zim will admit it) he likes the sound of his own voice almost as much as he enjoys bragging about achievements that aren’t _technically_ his, but could be loosely linked to him if you squint a little.

And just as Zim is getting to the most exciting part (the bit in which he nearly kills a customer and just barely avoids burning down the planet), he feels something brush past his hand. 

It’s soft and rough and warm all at once, and when Zim looks down and realises it’s Dib’s _hand_ , he rotates through all the Irken stages of grief in the span of 0.5 seconds.

Irkens are not known for dealing with emotions well. Therefore, the only known Irken stages of grief consists of one stage, and that is to scream.

And scream he does. Because Zim, through the hot-cold flashes and the sudden weak feeling, is fairly certain he is dying.  
  


When Zim lets out a shrill shriek, Dib jumps to the side, thoroughly disturbed, just as they’re walking past a lamppost.   
  


Too focused on his screaming half-friend-sort-of-enemy to see the aforementioned post, he slams headfirst into it with a noticeable ‘bonk’ that, if Zim were to hear it through his incessant squawking, would earn Dib a comment regarding all the air in his massive head.

“What,” Dib manages to get out through the dull throb of his skull, “is _happening_ right now?”

The shrieking stops abruptly, and now Dib can tell that his ears are ringing. Somewhere in the distance, a dog howls.

“Do. Not.” Zim turns his head away. “Touch Zim.”

“Oh. Sorry,” Dib says, one hand on the growing bump on his forehead, “I didn’t even notice.”

“Well. _I did._ So make sure it doesn’t happen again, or your kneecaps will be mine.”

Dib rolls his eyes. “Well you shouldn’t find it difficult, considering you’re at knee-height anyway.”

Which is a blatant lie, because Zim has grown significantly since his arrival on Earth. He still only comes up to Dib’s shoulders, making him _technically_ superior in Irken terms, except for the fact that he isn’t Irken, which makes the Dib-stink _inferior._

It’s complicated.

Zim, waving his hand around with an air of nonchalance, says “One day I will be taller than you, and you’ll be sorry!”

Dib chuckles, and Zim is completely offended.

Before he can retort, Dib starts walking again.

“C’mon, we’ve gotta keep walking, Space Boy!” And, completely on cue, a dull flicker of lightning lights up the clouds behind him.

After taking a couple of steps and realising that Zim hasn’t moved at all to follow, Dib turns to throw a mildly annoyed look the alien’s way.

The thunder catches up to the lightning, but it’s faint enough to not startle either of them. 

Far away, but it’s there. Probably moving towards them, with their luck.

“... Do you _want_ to get caught in the rain!?”

“Of course not!” Zim snaps, glaring daggers.

“Alright then, let’s go. Or you’ll be a melted puddle on the floor. Like the wicked witch of the west or something.”

Zim fails to get the reference, and lingers for a few seconds after Dib starts walking.

He raises his hand to touch his cheek, just to check.

He can feel the heat rolling off his face even through the gloves.

_What_?

For the rest of the walk, Zim tries to calm his horrible traitorous organs. And his horrible traitorous blood, pooling in his face like that.

_Zim’s blood should feel ashamed!_ He thinks, and then nearly hits a mailbox.

Dib raises an eyebrow but says nothing, and the silent mockery is almost worse than the spoken mockery.

“You’re acting weird,” Dib says, leaning in uncomfortably close. “And spacey.”

Zim, while he may have bluffed through not dying most of his military career, still has the coding of an Irken soldier in his PAK. Out of fight or flight, Zim has and will always choose the former.

So he straightens his posture, clicks the heels of his boots together, and says “I am perfect. Never been better,” with a note of defiance.

Then lightning flashes just behind Dib again, creating a halo around his silhouette in a colour that comes and goes too fast for Zim to name. 

_And it’s beautiful._

The sudden dread that washes over Zim makes him feel nauseous. 

The equally as sudden _crack_ that follows… that gives Zim a bit more than nausea. 

(It reminds him of explosions, the ~~horrible~~ exhilarating sound of planets dying, and dozens of soldiers ~~that were on his side~~ fallen at his feet, defeated by his own hand. 

~~Disasters Zim caused.~~ )

“That thunder has no business being _as loud as it is,_ ” Zim says, pushing past Dib with a grumbled “ _I hate this stinking planet.”_

Dib snorts. Argument already forgotten, he starts walking as well. 

By the time they both arrive at Zim’s house, Dib can smell the petrichor in the air.

“Rain’s coming soon.”

Zim raises an eyebrow at that. “How can you tell?”

“I can…” Dib says, blinking as though it were obvious, “... Smell it? Petrichor? Haven’t you heard of petrichor?”

Zim scoffs in disbelief, and Dib realises that he’s an alien who probably can’t smell it as well as humans.

Lightning lights up the sky again, this one more blinding than the rest, followed close enough to be worrying by a crack of thunder. Dib’s ears ring, and distantly he thinks it sounds like a massive falling tree, if said tree happened to be the size of the empire state building.

Zim tries so hard not to hit something (namely the human in front of him) with fright, he nearly shakes with the effort of it.

Trying not to look as _utterly sick_ as he feels, Zim strides into his base.

“Smell ya later, stinky!” He waves, “try not to get struck by lightning on your way back!”

He cracks a too-wide grin, hoping it unsettles Dib enough to worry if he’s planted a metal rod in his bag.

He hasn’t, but it’s fun to watch the human frown to himself, open his mouth to say something, and then get the door slammed in his ugly face.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The brush of hands lasted barely even a second.

It’s maddening all the same.

Zim can’t stop thinking about it, can’t stop the warmth pooling in his cheeks. It’s a battle, and he’s losing quite miserably. Distantly, he wonders if Dib made it back safely, and distantly, he crushes that thought beneath a metaphorical boot.

The base still has power, which should probably be suspicious considering the rest of the neighbourhood has had a blackout.

_But it’s fine,_ Zim thinks from his place on the couch, _because if I say it’s a generator any human crazy enough to question the likes of the Mighty Zim will be too stupid to say otherwise._

Gir wanted to jump in the puddles outside, but the lightning paired with his metal body would not bode well for any of his internal circuitry. Therefore he had to be told to stay inside, and thus the screaming began.

Zim thought he had it covered.

Zim thought he could offer the robot a number of fun things to do (Gir’s favourite things!) and that would be enough to distract Gir from his sorrows.

Zim thought _wrong_.

He had to put up with Gir’s singing for months on end. _Months_ . But the shrill noise of incessant weeping has got _nothing_ on that. This is the sort of horror found in Zim’s worst nightmares. It’s so loud and piercing it makes it hard to concentrate, think, and get any work done.

Which _should, reasonably,_ mean that all thoughts of Dib in a fashion that could be considered _romantic_ should not survive in a situation so bleak, hopeless and loud.

But alas, they persist.

Zim is almost scared of what will happen if he manages to make Gir be quiet; the thunder no longer being drowned out, _more thoughts of Dib_... but at this point he’s halfway to becoming mad.

If he weren’t already considered a villain by usual human trope standards, this would be his villain origin story.

So Zim, grabbing a pillow with a note of finality, decides _to Irk with it_ and shoves Gir’s face into the pillow. Which might look, to some, as if Zim were smothering Gir to death. But Gir doesn’t need to breathe, which can be proven by his ability to scream at a steady volume for half an hour with zero breaks.

After about five seconds, Gir, voice muffled, says “ooo, nap time!” and then promptly falls into sleep mode. 

Zim half wants to fall into sleep mode as well. He’s certainly weary enough. But, it is common knowledge that Irkens, while they hold the _ability_ to sleep, will not do so willfully unless they feel completely and utterly safe. Which is near impossible for Zim during a storm.

Plus he has jobs to do, base maintenance to finish, and plots to scheme. So he picks himself up off the floor, carries Gir to the dog bed he stole, and gently sets the little robot down.

Distantly, Zim wonders if the loud thunder will wake him up. He hopes not.

He gives Gir a gentle pat on the head, then moves to review his to-do list.

“ _Computer!_ ” Zim whisper-yells, “ _what points are left on Zim’s list?_ ”

“ _YOU’VE FINISHED EVERYTHING TWICE OVERRRR, WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME AGAINNN?”_

“ _Would you like Zim to leave the base to fall into disrepair?!”_ Zim, struggling to maintain a sort-of quiet volume, points a clawed finger up at the ceiling where he imagines the disembodied voice to come from. “ _Tell me, computer, what in this base needs maintenance?”_

Zim smugly expects a whole list to be read off. His computer may be sarcastic and disobedient, but he won’t lie.

Instead, the Computer replies, “ _NOTHING OF NOTE TO REPORT, SIR.”_

Zim, confused, asks “... Nothing? No jobs? I have really completed everything?”

“ _YES SIR. NOW CAN I GO BACK TO BROODING NOWWW?”_

Zim waves a gloved hand around. “Yes, yes, Computer.”

And then he is left with stifling silence. Magenta eyes blink once, twice, before Zim tentatively wonders what it is that humans do to occupy their spare time.

He could always try to put a stop to the traitorous thoughts of _Dib_ , once and for all?

So Zim walks briskly to the elevator leading to his lab (turned into a proper elevator, now, which is less inconspicuous but it can at least actually fit him), and descends into the depths of his base.

He fidgets with impatience while the elevator, painfully slow, makes the downwards climb. 

Two floors to go…

_Ding._

Zim practically sprints through the doors.

_The sooner i can be rid of this the better._

It’s quieter there, without the noise of the storm. He feels himself relax a little, no longer ~~worried~~ concerned about the thunder.

Zim should probably be more worried about tinkering with his PAK. Cut off from any and all Irken technicians, there will be nobody to help him if something goes wrong. PAK technology is _very_ delicate, and anyone as careless as Zim should be nowhere near the innards of what is essentially the life source of an Irken.

But Zim hasn’t gotten as far as he has by being _careful_.

So, with confidence that is completely unfitting for the situation, Zim hops up onto the makeshift examination table he fashioned out of a concrete bench (stolen from some hardware store; Zim hadn’t been paying attention when he stole it.)

“Computer?”

“ _WHAAAAAT?_ ” The Computer nearly sobs.

“Attach my PAK to the display screen. I need to check something.”

“ _UGH. FIIIIIINE. BUT YOU OWE ME ICE CREAM!”_

_“_ ... You have no digestive _or_ sensory system.”

“ _IRRELEVANT._ ”

Regardless of the Computer’s sarcastic remarks, wires emerge from the ceiling to attach themselves to Zim’s PAK, as requested.

The display system makes a cheesy chime when Zim boots it up, but Zim can’t find it in himself to be as annoyed by it as he usually is. Not when he is so full of _glee._

_Finally. I will be free of this blood-mutiny,_ Zim thinks, cackling.

Until he realises that GIR is still asleep upstairs, and promptly shuts up halfway through one loud cackle in particular, casting a nervous glance upwards.

When no ruckus and subsequent screaming ensues, Zim turns his attention back to the screen. Flipping through the data displayed, everything seems fine. Balanced.

Excepting the fact that there is, only marginally, an increase in the Irken equivalent of ‘dopamine’. 

_Which,_ Zim reasons, _must be the source of all of Zim’s suffering._

So, after ignoring the multiple warnings that pop up, Zim selects the option to produce less of the hormone. 

The Placebo Effect can be described, simply, as symptoms ceasing to persist after the patient believes themselves to be cured by a medicine that has little to no actual medicinal properties.

Zim, believing that little, insignificant tweaking of hormones to be his ‘cure’, feels better immediately. So he leaves the lab, giddy with delight. 

Whatever Dib did to him has been destroyed, annihilated, snuffed out.

He hasn’t thought of the human in 3 minutes, which is a win. Zim nods to himself, sitting on the couch with the TV playing late-night programming quietly. 

He isn’t really paying attention to it; Zim just wants background noise for his internal (and sometimes out loud, though he doesn’t notice this) victory monologue. 

And then he thinks about Dib again. 

Zim feels his face heat up.

_Damn_.

Hissing, he marches back down to his laboratory. Zim goes through the works to get his PAK connected to the display system again, and begins to seethe when the boot up chime sounds.

He _hates_ that stupid noise.

Unbeknownst to him, Zim’s eye twitches while he examines the data displayed in front of him.

And, as he had thought, that hormone is back to slightly higher than normal levels. 

Zim screams, throwing the screen to the side to clatter uselessly against the wall. 

He rips the wires out of his PAK with enough force to potentially dislodge a few internal wires and kill him, but Zim is too angry to care.

“COMPUTER!!” He barks, no longer caring if he wakes up Gir in his rage.

“ _WHAT IS IT NOOOOW? DON’T YOU HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO THAN ANNOY ME?”_

Zim gasps. “SLANDER!! YOU LIE!!! I am _dying_ , YOU FOOL!!! The Dib has…” he spits, “ _infected_ Zim _._ ”

“ _SIIIIGH. IT’S NOT AN INFECTION, SIR, YOU JUST HAVE A CRUSH.”_

It takes Zim a second to process the words, eyes narrowing in confusion. 

“... Of course I have a crush!! Is it this desire to crush the Dib that is making _me,_ the _Mighty Zim_ , sick?”

The computer lets out a long suffering sigh. The kind of sigh that says ‘i’ve been trapped with this idiot for 5 too many years, and I deserve a source of income for putting up with this.’

A screen on the far left side of the room powers up.

“ _DO THE RESEARCH YOURSELF._ ”

On it is a definition, in blaring red letters.

‘A brief but intense infatuation for someone, especially someone unattainable.’

_Computer doesn’t know what they’re talking about_ , Zim frowns to himself, already typing ‘infatuation’ into the search bar.

‘An intense but short-lived passion or admiration for someone or something.’

Now, mental gymnastics are not a real, enterable sport. But regardless, if Zim were to enter, hypothetically, in such a competition, he would win gold with his mere presence.

“... Yes? Zim has much passion for the Dirt Worm.” He punches an open palm. “I have a great passion for defeating him, hopefully killing him in the process!”

He seems to have completely ignored the ‘admiration’ and ‘unattainable’ sections of both definitions; and if he hadn’t, then his conclusion would make zero sense. But, in the end, neither does Zim. Settling for this explanation, Zim tries to quell the growing pit in his chest.

(It feels like it’s going to swallow him whole, and although Zim is also chalking this up to ‘rage’, it makes him uneasy).

(Not even Zim’s expertise in mental gymnastics can make him forget that he’s supposed to be broken.)

_It is simply my passion to kill him._

And thus, Zim finds himself in front of the TV again, half asleep. He can hear clattering in the kitchen, where Gir is busily making a cake that is most likely inedible. 

“It’s a ‘feel better’ cake!” Was all that the robot had said, offering no further explanation when prompted. Which, potential for poisoning aside, was kind of Gir. 

There will inevitably be a large mess to clean in the morning.

Zim can’t bring himself to care.

Zim can’t bring himself to jump at the thunder, either, despite it being just as loud as it had been hours ago.

He’s found the solution to the problem, so why is he suddenly so shmoopy? 

The TV plays nonsense advertising jingles, accompanied by flashing lights and bright colours that do nothing to quell his growing headache. Something else in him aches; in the place where a human heart would be. It’s stupid and insistent and Zim is _tired_ , tired like the day he found out his Tallests…

_No,_ Zim thinks, head in his hands. _I won’t think of it. Zim is perfect. Perfectperfectperfect…_

He rolls over onto his side, vision going blurry the longer he stays lost in his own thoughts. Gir brought him his cake some time ago. All he can remember offering is a hum of acknowledgement, and then Gir ran off to who knows where. 

The storm is still raging on outside, the sky splitting open with a _crack_ every now and again. The rain and wind batters at the windows, but it won’t get in. His base is superior to puny human bases. There is no room for error in his base. It is all maintained perfectly. 

_Perfect._

His mind wanders back to Dib again. Believing the warmth in his cheeks and the skip in his heart to be a product of passionate rage, Zim feels no concern over this anymore. 

The inner turmoil that stems from these thoughts must also be passionate rage, then, surely.

He thinks back to how odd Dib’s hand felt ( _how nice it felt_ , Zim’s traitorous mind whispers, and he snuffs out that thought like one would desperately try to snuff out a fire with nothing more than one’s own tears), and Zim’s organs quite suddenly feel as if they’re twisting inside out. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It _should_ be funny, to him… Seeing Dib cry. 

He should kick his enemy while he’s down, put an end to the sudden, almost painful rage that the Dib-beast gives him. 

And, maybe, back when they were both practically children, he might have. One quick stab with a PAK leg, and it would be done. As he was trained to do.

A soldier is too cold a profession for an Irken who’s first words were “I love you.”

Dib… Stupid, stupid Dib, always taking Zim seriously where others did not (even when he snapped bones beneath his feet, even when all he did was destroydestroydestroy).

It isn’t like anything he’s had before. It’s like a heavy, soft, warm blanket after being trapped in a desolate wasteland his entire life. 

Zim can’t give that up. 

He realises, with half-hearted disgust, that he wants to comfort his enemy of just over five years.

Towering over the human, Zim waits for a reaction. 

Perhaps for an insult? Maybe a punch?

After a few seconds, with neither of the expected outcomes occuring, Zim resigns himself to sliding down the bricks onto the dust-covered ground to sit next to Dib. 

The person who used to be Zim’s enemy, but had morphed into something that doesn’t quite fit that description somewhere along the line.

It takes the human long enough for the wait to be awkward to realise that Zim is there, sitting next to him, watching him sob his heart out.

After unsuccessfully attempting to stifle a hoarse scream, Dib whispers “ _what are you doing here?!_ ”

Zim has exactly zero experience in the ways of comforting a human, and decides the best way to go about it is to poke Dib in the face with a sharp claw and say (a little too loudly), “I am here to see if you are weak enough to defeat!”

Blinking, Dib swipes at his tears with a trench coat sleeve (successfully removing Zim’s finger from his forehead in the process).

“Uhm,” Dib says eloquently, “I’m not weak.”

It’s a pitiful attempt at normalcy, but Zim isn’t stupid.

Dib glares when the claw pokes him again, this time a little harder (but gently enough to not draw blood).

“You’re stupid, too. Annoyingly so. Do not act as if I did not just see you doing the face-leaky thing!” 

Dib tries to retort, but it only comes out indecipherable and broken. The tears start to stream down Dib’s face again, and no amount of furious scrubbing on the human’s part is stopping them.

Zim’s face softens. 

“Hey,” he says in a voice that, if it were coming from a mouth other than Zim’s, would almost be _gentle_. “What is the matter with you? What is the meaning of all this blubbering?”

Dib curls into himself a little further, sniffling, and tears continue to roll down his cheeks in rivulets. 

“Just… kids at school. Said some mean stuff. The usual.”

“If it is the usual, then why are you so schmoopy _now_?”

“They just... “ Dib’s voice cracks, and Zim is worried he might lose his voice again, “said something particularly not nice this time.”

Zim shuffles closer, and he tells himself it’s out of curiosity. “What did they say?”

Huffing out a humourless laugh, Dib says “you promise not to weaponise it or anything?” and holds out his hand, pinky finger outstretched.

Zim ponders this for a moment. He should probably promise not to, and then go ahead and use the insult whenever he gets the chance.

But something about this promise in particular feels important. 

In the end, curiosity wins out.

Zim is too impulsive to give the significance of this promise in particular more than a minute’s thought, and intertwines a finger with Dib’s, sealing their agreement in what feels like a sacred bind.

“Right, huh, okay. They said…” Dib sighs shakily. “They said i’m a disappointment to my Dad, that i’m cr-crazy, and that I should probably do the world a favour and just kill myself.”

His face scrunches up like he’s about to cry again, and Dib buries his face in his knees in an attempt to hide from his own words.

It might be the opinion that Dib is anything _but_ the perfect match in strength and wit to Zim, Irk’s finest invader.

Or perhaps it is the image of a world without Dib in it that comes to Zim’s mind, completely without his permission. 

Whatever the case may be, something in particular about that sentence makes Zim very, _unbelievably_ livid. 

“I’ll kill them for you,” Zim says, tone eerily quiet. Determined.

But Dib doesn’t catch on to the fact that Zim isn’t joking, and he wheezes out a tired laugh through his choked back sobs.

“Give Zim the names of those _worms_ , Dib!” Zim grabs onto Dib’s shoulders, desperation creeping into his voice (but Zim cannot fathom why). 

Something clicks in Dib’s mind. Zim is close enough to his face, now, to see the telltale twitching of muscles that give away when Dib has worked out the solution to a problem.

“Oh,” he smiles (and it’s a real smile, one Zim doesn’t see very often), “You aren’t kidding.”

Then he launches forwards, wraps his arms around Zim’s shoulders, and holds on like his life depends on it.

Zim has been forced to hug the dirt-creatures a small handful of times since he first arrived on Earth.

Those experiences were vile, skin-crawlingly unpleasant. But this one feels nice. It makes his heart glow with something light and fluttery, and it makes the blood rush to his cheeks…

… _Oh_. 

Dib pushes his face into the crook of Zim’s neck, and he can feel the smile pressed into his skin. Dib’s face is wet, and that tingles unpleasantly, but the act of the hug itself is nice enough for Zim to not care.

Hugs are, surprisingly, a universal thing. Inhabitants of worlds unfathomable to humankind, while they may not hug exactly the way humans do, partake in the activity.

Irkens can be considered the rare exception to this. Affection, whether it be physical or emotional, was slowly erased from their society as a whole over hundreds of generations. Through methods of discouraging smeets, altering PAK coding, and creating an aura of shame around partnerships other than those relating to battle, Irkens were considered ‘cruel’ and ‘heartless’ long before Zim came into being.

But instinct is a powerful thing.

And it is because of this that Zim slowly, tentatively puts his arms around Dib.

Something falls into place at the gesture and, now embracing Dib properly, Zim feels _comfortable_.

It’s a fragile moment but, all too quickly, Dib shatters it by pulling back with an apologetic smile.

“Sorry, I know you don’t like hugs, that was just surprisingly nice of you, and I… uhm, I thought…”

Zim, not ready to give up his first moment of actual, proper _peace_ in a long time, goes in for another hug. A tad too aggressively, Zim notes, when his head collides with Dib’s in a rush to get his arms around the human again.

Dib is surprised, but (despite his second recent head on collision with something) he’s happy.

And then he starts to feel a little awkward after five minutes straight of Zim clinging onto him for dear life. 

Dib might have felt a little _less_ awkward, had Zim hugged him at any point before in their strange not-quite rivalry. But Zim hasn’t, and screamed bloody murder at him not even two weeks ago for a brush of hands Dib didn’t even _notice_. 

It’s just too unexpected. 

And borderline _weird_. 

“Sorry…” Dib says, untangling their arms, “... I need to get home, or Gaz is gonna kill me. I’m supposed to be making dinner.”

“But you haven’t even made spaghetti before, Dib!” Zim whines, trying to scoop him back into another hug. But Dib knows better than to get trapped again, because he only has the willpower to escape _once, damn it!_

“I _do_ know how to watch a YouTube tutorial. Something as simple as pesto should be easy.”

“You’ll probably mess it up, knowing you, Dirt-worm.”

“Probably,” Dib smiles, getting up (must to the displeasure of Zim, who was hoping to steal another long quick hug).

“Bye, Zim.”

And Zim is left all alone in an alleyway, with something warm unfolding in his chest, trying to purge that entire conversation from his memory.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zim rifles through his locker for the third time. He’s already scanned for any and all sources of graphite.

There are no pencils in his locker. Or his PAK.

_Of course_ Gir had chosen today to eat all of his pencils. The dreaded _examination day_.

Zim hadn’t found out until this morning, _after_ Gir politely informed him that his pencils were delicious through a dance number.

_Which was,_ Zim thinks to himself, frustrated, _admittedly very cute. It did not bring back my pencils._

So he slams his locker shut, with a satisfying _bang_.

Dib, three lockers over, jumps.

Zim notices this, and then his eyes drop to the large pencil case the human is halfway through tugging out of his locker. 

_Pencil_ case.

Marching to his target with the gusteau of someone who thinks they have more authority than they actually possess, Zim attempts to snatch the case from Dib’s hands.

The attempt is unsuccessful, as marching conspicuously towards something one wants to steal is not a particularly good tactic.

Zim, however, has learnt that he no longer needs tactics.

They haven’t needed tactics for a long time, actually, with the last half-hearted battle over the planet being years ago. 

_After the Tallests…_

Dib dangles the pencil case over his head, standing on the tips of his toes. Zim isn’t even that much shorter (Only by a head, really), which makes the fact that he can’t reach the pencils _even more infuriating_.

“Gimme! Give to _Ziiiiim_!!”

Dib snorts, jumping when Zim, in a desperate attempt to reach, also jumps.

Despite knowing, deep down, that the humans would never notice… Zim still doesn’t want to risk using his PAK legs in front of a hallway half full of them.

Dib is still giggling to himself, _maliciously,_ when he finally lowers his arm.

Zim swipes again.

“Nuh-uh, Spaceboy! If you think you can plant _more_ tracking chips in my pencil case _after last time_ , then you are sorely mistaken!”

Zim only glares at that, tapping his foot impatiently while Dib rummages around his huge pencil case (and, honestly, how much more prepared can the child of a scientific genius be for a _Science examination_?).

The human fishes out a pencil, and passes it to Zim.

Their hands brush.

Zim doesn’t scream this time, all too _horribly_ familiar with the telltale rush of blood to his cheeks, and the painfully warm glow where a human heart would be. 

He takes the pencil, and tries to ignore The Feeling even as what seems to be the source of it all yammers away next to him on their way to class.

Zim can ignore this. It’s fine.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zim is facing a poster calling for lead singers in the local choir.

While his voice is, undoubtedly, _truly superior_ to the ones belonging to existing members of the choir, Zim knows he can’t join.

Too much attention.

He may not be trying to take over the Earth anymore, but he _is_ still an alien.

And, obviously, becoming a world-famous pop star would draw plenty of potential suspicion.

Which is what he would be, after joining the local choir of a city he’s pretty sure nobody (including the residents) has heard of.

Zim is ripped from his contemplation when he feels a hand touch his arm.

Whirling around, he realises it’s Dib.

The sudden flash of horrible _goop_ that the simple gesture causes is nearly enough to make Zim scream in confusion again. 

It’s so much worse than the other times… So. Much. Worse.

(Zim thinks of him and Dib in the kitchen, at his base, making pancakes, or waffles, or whatever, Dib touches his arm to get past…)

(The domesticity of that thought is enough to nearly make the irken, horrified, blanch).

Dib must notice Zim’s spooked expression, because he asks “... Are you okay? Earth to Zim?”

Zim straightens up all of a sudden, a glare on his face (though Dib can tell that it’s obviously forced).

“I am _fine_.”

Zim can ignore this.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Heeeeey, bro!” Dib drawls, slinging an arm around Zim’s shoulders.

Zim tenses up.

_It’s so hard to ignore when it keeps happening._

“We are _not_ bros,” he says, still walking (and, secretly, Zim hopes the arm might stay there. Like the football players do to let everyone know their love-pigs are _theirs_ , and the Dib is _his_ …)

Dib removes his arm before Zim can rip it off himself, giggling in between snorts.

“I knew that’d get on your nerves. C’mon, or we’ll miss the special meatballs!”

_Oh Dib…_ Zim thinks, fondly _… Every Thursday they have meatballs, and every Thursday you miss them._

The flutter in his chest is stupid, and it _should_ be foreign to him. But it isn’t and Zim doesn’t know what scares him more; that it’s familiar, or the fact that it _shouldn’t_ be.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zim is lying on his couch, well and truly confused.

_Rage, bloodlust… Does not feel this…_ Zim scrunches his face up at the thought… _Soft._

He had felt so certain. 

Zim sits up suddenly, dislodging a sleeping Gir from his place on Zim’s chest. The robot giggles as he hits the floor with a solid _thunk_. 

_I need answers._

So, picking Gir up and settling him back on the couch, Zim searches his PAK’s extensive database for Irken ailments (the word he uses is ‘diseases’).

Unfortunately, due to the feelings that Zim is experiencing being not _technically_ forbidden but punishable by execution (the tallests that made those laws had a funny definition of ‘forbidden’), there is nothing for Zim to find.

He curses under his breath, low enough for Gir to not hear him. If the robot had heard him, well...

There will _not_ be a repeat of… _Last Time._

He decides that perhaps putting words to his ailment may shed some light on the situation. Which, considering the PAK has almost every known alien language in the history of _ever_ downloaded, should be easy. Simple.

It does not prove to be so simple when Zim struggles to even push past his massive wall of denial to actually get to the root of the problem. Because it just so happens that emotions are very difficult to identify, when one has tried to pretend said emotions weren’t even real for just over a month.

But Zim is nothing if not determined. Gritting his teeth, Zim thinks _I will defeat this stupid disease if it kills me,_ and scans word after word after word.

After about 4 hours of constant scanning, Zim emerges at 3am with three words that on their own don’t _exactly_ match the evasive feeling, but together make more sense.

Wobbly warm juice.

_Which sounds idiotic_ , Zim sulks, sinking further into his couch.

_But better than nothing._

He plugs the words into the search function, fairly confident this time. Surely with more information, the results should be different?

The PAK comes up blank again. 

Zim is just about losing his mind.

He can’t find any information, can’t ask any other Irkens (and Zim chalks this hesitance up to the fact that if he’s so brilliant and even _he_ can’t figure it out, nobody but his Tallests can, and his Tallests...)

Zim’s previous anger-fueled determination fizzles into confused, hopeless misery. 

He’s all alone to deal with this horrible _emotion_ running rampant in his superior body.

So Zim does what Zim does best; ignore anything conflicting with his current sense of self in an effort to avoid the inevitable shmoop, not unlike the state he had fallen into when he discovered his Tallests...

_Ugh._

Zim raises a victorious fist half-heartedly from his place on the couch.

_I am Zim, and I will ignore these feelings if it kills me._

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They’re having a sleepover at Dib’s house.

It was while they were on their way to that blasted science class that he had vaguely mentioned he’s never had a sleepover before. Zim’s terrible mistake.

Dib proceeded to get all excited, saying that they’ve ‘gotta have one’ and that it’s an ‘earth tradition’. And when Zim scoffed, Dib made a face so dejected it was almost funny.

Almost.

It was mostly just sad.

It was stupid of him to say yes, puppy dog eyes aside, because now Zim, Dib, and Gaz are all gathered around a circular coffee table in the living room setting up a game called Man-off-a-bee.

There’s a lot of finance involved, Zim notes, eyeing the fake dollar notes warily.

“Where are the bees?” Zim asks, inspecting the box with growing trepidation.

Dib and Gaz only blink. Dib glances down at the rules as if to check that it’s definitely the game they meant to grab, before asking an incredulous “What?”.

“Man-off-a-bee. Where are the bees?” 

Dib wheezes, and Gaz cracks a smile (it looks creepy and too-sharp on her usually stoic face).

“MAN-OFF-A- _BEE?_ ” Dib snorts, “Where- We are playing _Monopoly_.”

Zim’s face scrunches up at the mockery (and it reminds Dib of a puppet, but he can’t remember which for the life of him), and pokes Dib in the face. Hard.

“You dare blame Zim for your insufficient grasp on how to pronounce your _own words?!_ ”

Gaz, ignoring the fight about to break out (she’s all too used to this), fishes out all the token options from the box. 

“Hey!” they’re halfway through a lunge at each other's throats when Gaz interrupts them. “Pick your pieces! Do you wanna play or NOT?”

Grumbling, Zim settles for the top hat, Dib picks the cat, and Gaz chooses the car. Apparently for the sole purpose of ‘running the other pieces over’ when she goes past them.

Zim picks up the rules reasonably quickly, and soon he’s left Dib in the dust (after Gaz left Zim in the dust).

Watching the light die from the human’s eyes as Zim purchases the last of the ‘collection’ Dib was building is almost as gratifying as watching him fork out more and more cash with each turn; Gaz owns more than half the board and Zim owns the rest (save for the one place Dib bought desperately half way through).

And then Dib goes bankrupt, wordlessly flops onto the floor face down, and refuses to talk to Zim or Gaz for the remainder of the game.

“Ah, the Dib is such a sore loser!” Zim cackles, patting his leg a couple of times in a mocking gesture of false comfort. Dib tenses. “I will be sure to keep this amusing reaction to loss in mind when your planet is dust beneath Zim’s feet!”

Dib, still clearly sulking, says “You’re both bastards.”

Now all that’s left for Zim to do is win against the Dib-sister.

About halfway through the ferocious battle of tactics Dib perks up, becoming Gaz’s personal cheerleader. 

_Hmph._

“Beat the bug, Gaz! Smush him into the ground!” Dib shouts, and Zim hopes nobody gets sued for waking up half the neighbourhood.

Gaz does, in fact, smush Zim into the ground. She turns his funds into pitiful stores of the wealth it once was, and his smug smirk is soon replaced by the hopeless concentration of someone who _used_ to know what they were doing, but when confronted with a problem they _should_ know how to solve, has forgotten everything.

Zim used to be a master of tactics! The game is almost solely tactics!

And yet here he is, being pulverised into dust by a 16 year old who (probably) has no military training.

Zim sulks much like Dib did when he finally goes bankrupt, with Gaz chuckling darkly as his sulk-soundtrack. 

“Aww,” Zim can _hear_ that stupid smug look on Dib’s face, “Dib the poor baby lose?”

The mocking is accompanied by pats to the alien’s leg, much like Zim had done earlier. The parallels are not lost on him.

“Shut up.”

Dib snorts in between giggles, clearly not on Zim’s side. 

_Whatever._

Gaz gets up, shakes out the static in her legs, and wishes everyone a terrible night.

And then Dib gets up too, packing away the game. He almost starts laughing again when he gets to putting away Gaz’s massive pile, and Zim almost smacks him.

Almost.

Zim is knocked out of his sulk when he feels arms wrap around his stomach to hoist him up onto the couch.

“Okay, ya stupid bug, movie time!”

There’s a dull ache of disappointment in his chest when Dib moves away again to pick a movie.

Dib, muttering, flicks through disc cases until he gets to one called ‘Lovesick Waffle-Pancakes 4’ and then proceeds to do a small victory fist pump.

“The movie,” Zim says, sniffing disdainfully, “will only be played if I _approve_ of it, Dib-idiot.”

The thinly veiled threat is met with Dib making a hand gesture Zim can’t replicate with only three fingers, and the disk is popped into the player. Defiant eye contact is made the entire time, and it’s almost impressive how the human finds the spot where the disk is supposed to go first try without looking.

“This one is _so_ stupid, you’ve gotta see it. I heard it was made on a budget of under $20.”

Dib continues to prattle on while he settles into his spot on the couch; shoulder to shoulder with Zim.

And, as expected, he feels wobbly warm juice. _Stupid_.

Not even twenty minutes in, Dib yawns, slumping on to Zim’s shoulder. Zim has to suppress the growing urge to put his arms around the human, like that time in the alley…

His antennae pick up a soft snore, and Zim knows he’s fallen asleep.

_Weak humans. Can’t even stay awake for this long._

Slowly, Zim moves him sideways onto his lap so his neck isn’t strained. _Because,_ Zim reasons, _this way he won’t complain incessantly when he wakes up._

It is at this point in the film that the main character, Ret, lists off the various symptoms of his apparent ‘illness’ to his doctor (a dog wearing a stethoscope).

“It’s warm, and makes my knees go weak! My blood rushes to my face! Oh doctor, please help me!”

Ret’s response is a soft “boof”.

Zim recognises those symptoms.

He leans forward, failing to notice himself idly running his claws through Dib’s hair.

Ret gasps dramatically, holding a hand to his chest. 

Dib stirs, and Zim shushes him quietly, stroking his cheek in an effort to get him back to sleep. It works, and he fails to notice the smile creeping onto his face (too soft for an Irken who killed hundreds of his own soldiers without so much as a blink as a mere smeet.)

“You mean to tell me, doctor, that i’m in…”

Zim leans forwards even further, antennae straining forwards to catch the next words carefully.

“... Love?”

_Oh._

_Love._

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, thanks for reading!! I wish everyone a safe and happy 2021. If your 2021 has been neither safe nor happy thus far, then I hope this fanfiction (and any others you choose to read) gives you some happiness in these trying times.
> 
> I did have to search up “monopoly tokens” to figure out which ones the Gang™️ Would choose, and I also had to search up “tallest monopoly piece” to figure out what Zim would pick. This came up blank because obviously my search was too obscure for google. Damn you, google.
> 
> Edit: I fixed some spelling and formatting mistakes, including whatever happened to the strike through?? Those sentences must have been near indecipherable before I fixed it I’m so sorry D:


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